Year of Push 4.6 How Free Are You?

by | Jul 4, 2017 | Blog

How free are you if you’re confined by your comfort zone? How free are you if you struggle to choose what you want most and succumb to the allure of what you want now?

How free are you if every choice feels like a struggle and you’re burdened by “should haves”?

How free are you if the life you desire is a far cry from the life you’re creating with your choices?

That thing you call “easy” is chaining you to a life you don’t want.

That’s not freedom.

But, freedom is possible for you.

Make a list of your “comfort zone choices” – those choices you make that aren’t aligned with what you really want but you turn to them out of ease, habit or familiarity.

Just for today: defy them. Create independence.

For one day, be free from the chains of your past behaviors. This is possible for you.

And, it’s so, so worth it.

You can do anything just for one day.

Can I just tell you how much I was NOT looking forward to today’s workout? In fact, there was a lot of internal debate about going down to Cape Cod last night and working out from there.

However, that would have been a comfort zone choice and showing up for this morning’s workout defied my comfort zone in every way.

The workout was a CrossFit benchmark & hero workout known as Glen. When I saw it, I started making alternative plans in my head because my knees are bothering me (after a good long stretch without pain, wtf?) But, I quickly redirected my thoughts to “what can I do?” and decided to scale the run portion of the workout.

“Glen”
30 Clean & Jerks (135/95)
1 Mile Run
10 Rope Climbs
1 Mile Run
100 Burpees

Some people are embarrassed to scale (modify) a workout. I’m not. I’m not here to compete with anyone.

I’m not looking for some “badass” badge of honor.

I’m trying to improve my fitness, physique &  health. I’m here to push my own body in ways that make sense & feel good.

That ain’t got nothing to do with doing a workout as prescribed “just because”.

I could have rowed or biked instead of the run, but I decided to do the run but cut it in half. I ran 0.5 miles instead of a full mile for each of the run segments.

Why run at all if my knees are bothering me? Because I need the practice and it is, for me, a more intense and cardiovascular stimulus than biking or rowing. Plus, I know that a little running is okay (with proper foam rolling before and after) but longer runs trigger legit pain & inflammation.

So, my workout was 30 clean & jerks, half mile run, 10 rope climbs, half mile run, 100 burpees.

Pretttttty sure that’s still one hell of a great workout for 6am on a holiday!! 🙂

It was the PERFECT stimulus for me. It was hard as hell and I pushed myself throughout. Shortening the run allowed me to minimize impact on my knees and keep a higher intensity than I would have if I was running twice as much.

For my current goals, intensity matters more than duration. I’d rather go faster & shorter than longer & slower. That’s what’s right for my body & my goals.

I totally wanted to quit around 70 burpees but I knew I’d feel better if I finished the damn thing than if I didn’t.

I felt super proud of the work! Heck of a way to start the 4th of July holiday!

After the workout I realized that all the roads around my house were closed for a holiday parade so I hit the road to get out of town.

I stopped to do some work for a few hours and then drove down to Cape Cod.

On the food front:

I packed my food for the holiday. I no longer use every holiday as a reason to indulge. My birthday is next week and I’d rather indulge at a special place than go for chips and grocery store cookies on the beach today. I’ve had BBQ indulgences a million times and they just aren’t worth it to me (90% of the time).

**edited**

I wrote this blog in the AM and my food choices changed a bit from what I intended so I’m making a couple updates.

I didn’t eat until about 10am when I had a large cobb salad. I had packed lunch but decided not to eat it when I heard we were going out to dinner that night.

Out to dinner, I ordered lobster bisque but it was too sweet so I passed it off after a bite. My entree was a mixed green salad with lobster.

Oh, you know what else I had? Before dinner we stopped off at a bar and I ordered a White Claw seltzer – it’s basically a gluten free spiked seltzer. I think it’s about 110 cals and 4g carbs (I don’t count cals but I know you’d be curious). It’s only 5% alcohol, so it’s super light. It’s refreshing, but so is plain seltzer. I drank about half of it and then figured it wasn’t really worth it. I wasn’t bad. It wasn’t amazing. But it’s an option if I want some alcohol.

I hope you’re enjoying your 4th of July! Chat more tomorrow!

PS: If you’re new to these posts, listen to this podcast episode to get the scoop on what changes I’m making in my life and you can start back at my first daily post here.

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